As I described before, my writing process is a bit...random...but my revision process is a bit more structured.
First, after initially writing my piece, I immediately read over what I've just written to catch spelling errors and grammatical mistakes.
Then I leave that piece alone for at least one day, and sometimes even longer than that.... I've spanned a year before looking at something again. But, usually, I wait at least a day, and sometimes a week. Then I reread it again, catching any errors I missed the first time around, and just generally revamping the piece to make it sound better.
And that's usually how it works for shorter pieces. When adding to a longer piece, however, another step is added.
I again leave the writing alone for a day or so. The next time I look at the segment, I have it attached to the larger piece of work. I do not read the segment by itself. I read the whole thing at once, which helps me add transitions and connecting segments to obtain fluidity.
After taking the whole piece of work into consideration and editing in this way, adding where necessary (and possibly deleting, too), I, again, leave my writing alone for a day or so before looking at it again. I continue editing and then ignoring it until I am satisfied with what I have written.
I know for myself that I can think something is an absolutely fantastic piece of work one day, and then the next day realize that it's embarrassingly low quality and incomprehensible. The trick is, for me, to write something that I continue to find satisfying day after day.
I've unintentionally memorized some of my writings before by following this procedure. Ah, well.
Cristina
leaving it...i learned that by mistake. once when i went away, i stopped writing, which i almost never do--then when i got back it looked completely different to me. so that told me to "rest" a piece. so you got it early
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I love your "leave it alone for a day" technique!
ReplyDelete"The trick is, for me, to write something that I continue to find satisfying day after day." YES!! Brilliant! So true!
I like the idea of reading over what you've written to get into the flow of writing. isn't it funny how sometimes something you loved turns into something else entirely? funny, the process of sifting through to the real voice. you seem to have a strong, focused method. very good.
ReplyDeletehahah "collecting my files from various folders and labeling them correctly." Love this. I still find random pages that I typed up of my thesis last year labeled Half..or Half and Half...or even by my name...as if that's not confusing enough (something that's mine labeled as me...that only sums it down to anything that I've written from the past 14 or so years). I find that many people, including me tend to leave their piece alone for a while then revisit it with fresh eyes.
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